BISHKEK: A goalless draw against Bangladesh on the opening day of the AFC Challenge Cup 2008 qualifying has filled Afghan hearts with optimism, marking a milestone in their slow rehabilitation into international football.
With no international games for almost 20 years, from 1984 to 2003, Afghanistan went into a downward spiral in the FIFA World Ranking, hitting rockbottom 204th in 2003.
And, the first major tournament where they proved to the world at large that they had put the dark years behind them was the inaugural edition of the AFC Challenge Cup in 2006 in Bangladesh where they went down to India 2-0 in the opener but held Chinese Taipei and Philippines to draws in their next two games.
“Five years ago when we played abroad, we were looking for results. Now we are looking for points,” recalled Afghanistan’s German coach Klaus Stärk while speaking to
www.the-afc.com.
Football in Afghanistan is plagued by several problems and topping the list is security as many parts of the country are still controlled by the conservative Taliban regime.
This Super League is the top Afghan championship but all the teams are from Kabul and all the matches are played only at the Olympic Stadium in the Afghan capital though the country itself has a complicated hierarchy of smaller leagues.
“In Afghanistan there is a big problem with mountains and deserts, and bad roads,” said Stärk. “This makes the movement of teams very difficult and in some cases impossible.”
According to midfielder Harez Habib the success of football in the country now depends on the performance of the national team.
“I think if the national team is successful, more people will come forward to sponsor the Super League,” says Habib.
In the national team, German, the coach’s language, is as popular as the Afghans’ native language of Dari or Pashto as there are five players who live in Germany, including Habib, and this multilingual quintet ply their trade for FSC Lohfelden in the German fourth division.
And Stärk has plans to go global in his search for talent in the coming years. “We are planning to get players of Afghan origin in Germany, United States, England, Holland and other European countries to play for the national team.”
But for now Stärk’s men, boosted by the 0-0 stalemate with Bangladesh in the first game, are expected to go into today’s crunch match against hosts and group favourites Kyrgyzstan firing on all cylinders.
A win or a draw – combined with the result of the May 9 final group game between the hosts and Bangladesh - will put the Afghans within a shout of qualifying for the main competition to be held in India from July 30-August 10, 2008.
